Ice, Ice, Baby 2025

[Trail Talk]

I decided to go with the Inkbird temp control box instead so that I could dial in the on/off settings.

Thanks for introducing me to Inkbird! They have a lot of options

 

[Trail Talk]

I came across a product from GMI Energy that offers a ready-made solution. Have reached out for details.

 

[waveslider]

This is the unit I was speaking of. Now that I understand what you’re trying to do - I don’t think it will help much but posting anyway if anyone is interested.

 

[Singler3360]

I came across a product from GMI Energy that offers a ready-made solution. Have reached out for details.

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Thanks for posting this. I saw something similar to this when I was looking. With 5 batteries I decided on the cheaper DIY solution fist. So far so good.

 

[Trail Talk]

With 5 batteries I decided on the cheaper DIY solution fist. So far so good.

Yeah, cost is the biggest barrier to the GMI product. OTOH they will custom-make for the odd TALL H7/GC12 battery size. Their heater covers the battery on five sides and has two elements which can be operated independently. Actually I'm lazy and its cold outside (-36°C wind chill today) so the prospect of fussing with any DIY project in time for our next trip is not appealing 🥶.

I also received a quote from Ultraheat, who will provide a DIY component kit, and was surprised to find it was actually slightly more than GMI's ready-made solution.

And to cover all bases, I learned that a new self-heating version of my battery was just released by the manufacturer (clearly the industry knows the problem). I reached out to their tech support to see if mine can be upgraded. A week has passed without a response so I'll take that as a "no". The retailer quoted me for new batteries, which turns out to be roughly 4X the cost of the aftermarket heaters from GMI or Ultraheat. Gawd, that throws a monkey wrench into my calculations. Wonder if there's a market for used LiFePO4 batteries?

 

[Trail Talk]

Explored the heated battery from Discover Blue...actually, I ordered a couple...and when I dived into the manual was surprised to learn that heat was only available while these batteries are on shore power! Not gonna work for us but the good folks at Canadian Energy allowed me to cancel. I've now ordered the GMI battery heater which "may" arrive in time for our next trip North.